Beyond the Halving: Why the Four-Year Cycle is Being Quietly Rewritten

In the nearly two decades since Bitcoin emerged, the four-year cycle narrative has functioned as gospel—halvings, supply constraints, bull markets, and the ritualistic dance of altseason. But something shifted after the April 2024 halving. Bitcoin climbed from $60,000 to $126,000, a modest gain by historical standards, while altcoins languished. Macro liquidity and policy dynamics eclipsed technical cycles as market anchors. When $50 billion in spot ETF inflows absorbed supply shocks before they materialized, one question became unavoidable: Is the mathematical certainty of the four-year cycle being eroded?

To examine this inflection point, we convened seven veteran practitioners—founders of NDV Fund, ArkStream Capital, Liquid Capital, DFG, Jsquare Fund, Maitong MSX, and a leading on-chain data analyst—to dissect whether we’re witnessing cycle decay or market evolution.

The Halving as a Diminishing Variable

The consensus among our panel: the halving remains significant, but its explanatory power is fading.

CryptoPainter, a quantitative analyst studying on-chain metrics, frames it mathematically. When miners captured outsized gains in early cycles—Bitcoin’s cost averaging $20,000 while prices reached $69,000 yielded 70% margins—each halving mattered enormously. Today, post-halving mining costs approach $70,000, and even at the $126,000 peak, profit margins hover around 40%. As supply reduction diminishes in relative terms, so does its market impact.

Jason, an NDV Fund founder who previously managed allocations for institutional offices, reframes the cycle entirely. “The four-year narrative was always misunderstood,” he argues. “It’s not really about code—it’s about political cycles and central bank liquidity rhythms.” The US election calendar and Federal Reserve balance sheet expansion created a dual driver, but with Bitcoin’s entry into macro asset sequences via ETF approval, fiat currency depreciation risk and M2 expansion became the true cycle engines. In this view, the 600,000 new Bitcoin entering circulation (2024-2028) represents trivial supply pressure—less than $6 billion annually, easily absorbed by institutional flows.

The Narrative Trap: Self-Fulfilling or Self-Destroying?

A second realization emerged: the cycle may have transitioned from mechanism to behavior.

Joanna Liang, founding partner of Jsquare with $200+ million AUM, observes that institutional participation fundamentally altered cycle mechanics. In prior cycles, retail liquidity spikes created parabolic moves concentrated around halving events. “Now,” she notes, “ETF inflows are distributed across months, spreading price appreciation over longer windows rather than explosive rallies. The cycle hasn’t broken—it’s been smoothed.”

Yet smoothing raises a provocative possibility: might we enter a “super cycle,” where compressed bear markets and extended bull phases replace the traditional binary structure? The data partially supports this. With stablecoin supply still expanding (Bruce’s indicator for cycle confirmation), macro liquidity remains accommodative despite technical weakness.

CryptoPainter marks the current phase as a “probationary state”—technically bearish (below the MA50 weekly), but not confirmed as a cyclical bear without macroeconomic recession and prolonged stablecoin contraction. The jury remains genuinely split.

Institutional Gatekeeping and the End of Altseason

One casualty appears final: the indiscriminate altcoin rallies of previous cycles.

Where once “altseason” meant broadly rising prices across thousands of tokens, today’s structure resembles US equity markets post-financialization. “Think of it like the Magnificent Seven,” Ye Su suggests. “A handful of blue-chip projects will compound institutional adoption; most others will experience occasional technicals-driven spikes with minimal persistence.”

The barriers to traditional altseason are structural, not temporary. Bitcoin dominance creates a safe-haven clustering effect. Regulatory clarity separates compliant, revenue-generating protocols from speculation-only tokens. Most critically, the token universe has exploded—more coins chasing marginally more capital means dispersion, not concentration. CryptoPainter is blunt: “Sector rotations will replace broad rallies. You must think in terms of narratives—DeFi, RWA, AI agents—not individual tokens.”

Where Real Growth Lives: Institutional Adoption and Fiat Decay

If the halving cycle is weakening, what actually drives appreciation?

Jason identifies the structural decline in fiat currency credibility combined with institutional normalization. As Bitcoin enters sovereign balance sheets, pension fund allocations, and hedge fund reserves, its performance logic mirrors “digital gold”—a hedge against fiat depreciation, not a technical calendar phenomenon. More provocatively, he emphasizes stablecoins as the real growth engine. Their addressable market vastly exceeds Bitcoin’s; their penetration pathway threads through genuine payments, settlements, and cross-border capital flows. Stablecoins represent the interface layer of next-generation financial infrastructure, embedding crypto into real business operations rather than speculation alone.

Joanna echoes this with “compound interest adoption.” Provided institutional allocation channels remain open—whether through ETFs or real-world asset tokenization—the market should display slow-bull characteristics: volatility compression, interrupted by periodic technical corrections, but no reversals.

CryptoPainter’s framing is the most macro-dependent: as long as global monetary conditions remain loose and the dollar weakens, even repeated technical bear phases will resolve into oscillating uptrends. The traditional bull-bear binary transitions to patterns resembling gold—long stagnation interrupted by surge phases.

Bruce, the sole pessimist, warns that structural economic erosion—employment collapse, youth disengagement, wealth concentration, geopolitical risk accumulation—creates material recession probability in 2026-27. If systemic crises materialize, crypto correlation to risk-off dynamics will reassert, ending any slow-bull narrative. His conclusion: the bull case remains conditional on liquidity persistence, not structural inevitability.

The Portfolio Reality Check

Most revealingly, practitioner allocations signal caution despite public optimism.

Jason maintains defensive positioning: predominantly Bitcoin and Ethereum, skeptical of ETH upside, heavily rotated into exchange equities and gold as USD alternatives. CryptoPainter enforces a 50%+ cash rule, BTC/ETH core positions, sub-10% altcoin exposure, and ironically holds leveraged shorts against overvalued AI mega-cap US stocks. Jack Yi runs a concentrated bet on public chain ecosystems and stablecoin infrastructure rather than cycle timing, keeping nearly full deployment but with tight conviction exposure.

Bruce stands alone in conviction: he’s liquidated crypto holdings entirely, sold Bitcoin near $110,000, and expects re-entry opportunities below $70,000 within two years. He’s predominantly defensive on US equities as well, expecting major liquidation before the 2026 calendar milestone.

Timing the Reentry

The practical question: Is now the moment to resume accumulation?

Bruce dismisses it categorically. A true market bottom emerges when “capitulation is complete—when no one dares to buy anymore.” Realistic opportunities appear below $60,000 using the half-from-peak framework.

Most peers adopt a middle ground: this is not optimal for aggressive accumulation, but rather an appropriate window for staged position-building and disciplined dollar-cost averaging. The universal caveat—essential in fractious market structures—is avoiding leverage and frequent trading. Conviction in methodology supersedes conviction in timing.

The four-year cycle hasn’t vanished; it’s been subordinated. Halving mechanics still matter. But they now operate as secondary catalysts within a broader architecture driven by institutional flows, fiat depreciation, monetary policy, and network adoption trajectories. The cycle endures—merely less like a metronome, more like a compass.